Gitan
by Non Serieux Nom de Plume
Summary: A pivotal moment in Javert's childhood.


"Hey! _Gitan!_"

A young boy, no older than nine or ten, bit back a nasty sneer. He was charged with the unpleasant but necessary daily task of cleaning the guards' quarters. There was always enough of them to keep him busy day in and day out, with opportunities for extra pocket change arising whenever the captain of the guard had minor errands to accomplish. With his too-big trousers rolled up past his knees and his palms covered in suds and sediment, he arose, dried himself off the best he could, and calmly attended to the derisive call.

The boy bowed low before a couple of young, boorish guards. His dark face was cast into shadow by a thick mop of rich black hair, but the light-skinned uniformed men assumed that he kept his gaze on the floor, where it belonged.

"She'll be out on her ban by the end of the day," said the leader of the small group, a pompous specimen of about twenty, complete with stylish mustache to compensate for his repulsive profession. "The captain's examining her case now. You know what that means for you?"

The boy stood in uncaring, dispassionate silence. Despite the direct question, he understood that these guards were not looking for him to speak. Not really, in any case. They would rather they face a dumb and deaf idiot, unwilling and unable to speak for himself.

"Hey! Did you hear me? That woman - Euphème -Zavier? Javiert? Javert? Xavier-"

"_Zhavier_," the boy said with an exotic, implacable accent. His voice was both humbled and defiant, and there was an odd slur in the thick of his throat, as if he were always growling. It carried with it a maturity and darkness beyond his years, and to many a bourgeois ear, they might have been convinced that no innocence could have ever existed within this child, no matter how young he was.

The guard couldn't hold back a start. He hadn't expected the kid to pipe up at all.

"That's right. Javert."

The boy also understood that there was only one man willing to hear him truly speak and give him the honest work he was looking for throughout the entire prison. He was not any of the men standing before him at that moment. He would save any further words for _that_ man when the time was right.

"It means," continued the guard with a conceited, toothy smirk, "that you get to go out with her. She gets her yellow ticket and her pocket change, and her cub goes on out the door with her. Your dirty mitts won't go near my tobacco-box anymore. I bet she already has an act lined up for you. Some fortune-telling double teaming ditty. She'll draw the cards, and you ring the magic bell."

The guards paid little actual attention to the boy. If they had taken a good look at him, they would have seen two glittering, resentful eyes through his hair.

"Well?" Prompted the guard. "Run along to meet her, then! Your time with us is finished."

"It isn't, 'sieur." The title was slurred with such revulsion, that it almost lacked respect. Almost. "My contract won't end for five years."

The guard gaped at him dumbly. It took the assembled guards a moment to recompose themselves. They thought of it little more than his gypsy accent. Adorable, really, except for the fact that he was a guttersnipe borne of a distrusted vagrant woman.

"_Contract_?" bit the guard. "With whom?"

"Monsieur Captain."

"To what purpose?"

"So I'll earn my way."

The guard was flabbergasted. Disgusted. "Earn? A _gitan_?"

Here the boy lifted his eyes defiantly. "Yes." His bangs parted. "Unless you want to scrub your own floors and latrine."

The guard soured. "Why give you that _honor_?"

The child's face blackened. It was hardly an honor to scrub the piss of a crude, disloyal man unbefitting of his profession. He shrugged, a shadow of listlessness. He wanted to show that he did not care, though his voice rumbled unpleasantly. "I'm thorough."

"You need the money."

This time the child was silent, burning with a roaring, silent light in his eye. His face flushed white.

The guard was satisfied, a winner in this game.

"You'll join her eventually. 'You' always do," patronized the guard. "She's your own mother, isn't she?"

The boy scowled. His fists, formerly thrust angrily into his pockets, withdrew a single bent card. "Only sometimes." He dropped the card onto the single, dimly-lit guard's table. "Give it to her when she leaves. I won't see her."

Then the child exited, returning to his work full of resentment and disgust.

The guards exhaled upon the boy's departure. They hadn't realized they were holding their breath, but the child had that sort of unsettling disposition about him. He was a gypsy, besides! The leader, with a derisive twirl of his mustache, could not suppress his curiosity. He picked up the card. On the front was a beautiful, detailed illustration, immaculately hand-drawn and hand-painted, of _The Hanged Man_.

It was a tarot card. A fortune-teller's tool.

The guard dropped the thing as if it burned his hand.

"_Bohèmiens!_" he spat. "I'll never trust the scoundrels."


End file.
